Andrei Siniavskii. A hero of his time?

Abstract

This thesis is an artistic biography of Andrei Siniavskii (1925-1997) as a
writer in and of his time, showing how this subtle and complex author found his
way in a society polarised into heroes and villains, patriots and traitors; how he
progresses from identification with the value system and ideology of his time to
reaction against it, his dissidence expressed in literary terms.
Beyond this, I hope to show how he moves to a new conception of the writer
in the fusion of his creative and critical selves that is dominated neither by the
voice of the collective ‘we’, nor by the voice of the individual ‘I’ but which
leaves space in the text for engagement by the reader. Individual readers,
passing manuscripts from hand to hand or reciting texts orally had assured the
continuity of the Russian literary tradition during the long bleak years when
literature seemed to mark time under the strictures of Soviet ideology and
Socialist Realist aesthetics. Siniavskii’s work is motivated by the passionate
belief that the way forward for Russian literature lay in this same spark
generated between individual reader and text.
My thesis is organised chronologically and is based on a close reading of
Siniavskii’s work. It explores the way his art does not simply reflect the
circumstances of his life and times but is actively shaped by an intricate
commerce between the two. I intend to show how Siniavskii’s distancing
himself, first ideologically then physically, from the Soviet system is
counterbalanced by his creative reintegration with Russia through literature.